Computer anxiety and skill-based class organization in computer literacy education

The relationship of computer anxiety and skill-based class organization was investigated in a sample of 277 individuals who were attending the computer literacy course in Osaka University. The "operation anxiety" is defined by four questions in the questionnaire survey, and the scores are analyzed using three major factors: class, faculty and time. Results indicate that the average scores of the operation anxiety in the less experienced class significantly decreased by the half of the semester, which proves the effectiveness of the class organization method. In contrast to it, the anxiety scores of the experienced class students increased. The authors believe the increase came from a kind of intrinsic motivation and is no problem for those students to learn more challenging tasks.